Metrobus

Today, Metrobus ridership averages 440,000 weekday trips. In FY 2009, there were a total of 134 million trips on Metrobus. Bus ridership is projected to expand to 510,000 average weekday trips by 2020 (see figure), or about 1% a year. Addi- tional buses and bus garages are needed to accommodate future ridership growth, Bus ridership is projected to expand to 510,000 average weekday trips by 2020, or about 1% a year. avoid overcrowding and maintain the expanded fleet. Metro plans to focus the purchase of new buses on priority corridors that serve the greatest concentration of riders. These priority corridors include plans for running way improvements such as bus priority treatments along regional roadways (e.g., transit signal priority Metrorail and Metrobus Ridership Trends implementation), additional travel lanes at sig- nalized intersections allowing buses to move to the front of traffic known as queue jumpers, bus bulbs that extend the sidewalk for a bus stop into the parking lane so the bus can remain in the traffic lane, corridor identity improve- ments and traffic management improvements. Priority corridor networks increase the average speed of buses by up to 30%, not only saving Daily Ridership Growth (in 1,000s) 1,400 Rail- forecast 1,200 Rail- trend 1,000 Bus- forecast 800 Bus- trend 600 Metro capital and operating expenses but also improving passenger travel times. However, success of these priority corridors is dependent on partnerships with Maryland, the District of 400 2005 2010 2020 2030

Columbia and Virginia. Through these partnerships, signal and road improvements need to be implemented to result in efficient and effective priority bus corridors.

MetroAccess

Of all its services, Metro’s paratransit service, MetroAccess, is expected to experi-

ence the fastest growing ridership over the next ten years. In FY 2009, 2.1 million passenger trips were taken on MetroAccess. By 2020, ridership on MetroAccess is anticipated to grow to 4.5 million trips (112% increase). Customer demand for accessible services continues to rise for four reasons: national and regional trends in the population of senior citizens and people with disabilities, many customers remain unable to use fixed-route bus and rail service due to the severity of their disabilities, lack of accessible pathways to reach bus and rail service, and other specialized transportation programs are being downsized or eliminated with the associated demand shifting to MetroAccess. Since 2004, the MetroAccess share of the regional paratransit market share has increased from 25% to 34% while human service transportation providers have reduced their market share from 50% to 25%.3